


Lavender Moon

by vermicious_knid



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Swan Princess (1994)
Genre: Dark, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), and issues about death, is anyone in storybrook actually sane anyway?, main character has PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: White walls always weepwhen I try to fall asleepIn this city by the sea- Haroula Rose





	1. Chapter 1

Odette has always had a problem with water. One way or the other, it has terrified her since birth. Nobody in Storybrooke has been able to explain it. 

 

When she was five, she cried everytime her father put her in the bathtub – it got so bad at one point that the old lady next door, Mrs. Potts, had to come in and take over, since her father couldn’t bare to see his daughter cry.

 

In the summer days, when the weather was hot and all the other children crowded around the local gym to head for the outdoor swimming pool, Odette disappeared into the park next to the library. She used to stay there for hours, until no other children were around to tease her for not wanting to get wet.

 

But it was not about that at all. It was about trying to block out memories. Memories she only experienced during sleep, memories of cold places and long, lonely days of watching the sky turn, waiting for the moon to show herself. She couldn't talk to anyone about these dreams, knew that it was somehow breaking the rules. 

 

When she was in fourth grade, it got a little better. But when her class took a fieldtrip to a nearby lake by the woods, something happened. Odette was walking down by the edges of the lake, talking to a boy that maybe liked her a little. His name was Derek and he had blue eyes. It felt safe with him then, the water less frightening than before.

 

But the rocks were slippery by the shores, and she fell in.

 

A strange man saved her life. She did not know who he was, and he did not stay long enough to talk to her teacher about what had happened.

 

 _But she rememberd his cloak, the owl painfully tattooed into his arm like a self-punishment_. She saw them moments before he disappeared into the woods, leaving her alone with Derek who was putting his winter coat around her shoulders, telling her that everything was going to be fine. Water was still lodged in her throat, but when she coughed it up it was like something else dislodged from her chest. Something that had been stuck inside her for a long time, until the stranger appeared. 

 

And yes, maybe thing would be better, this time.


	2. Chapter 2

The people of storybrooke took care of their own. It was, in many ways, an ordinary town filled with ordinary people. Only if you were a stranger here, you might perhaps catch a glimpse of something note quite hidden, not quite safe.

 

But everyone was mostly happy, content with their lives.

 

Mary Margaret, one of the teachers at the elementary school, kept track of those students who did not fit the mold. Odette Hoffman was one of them.

 

Though she was no longer her teacher, Mary often thought of Odette and whenever she could, would confer with the other teachers for the older students on how she was getting along.

 

Mary fondly remembers a tiny girl with white-blonde hair, and though shy and a bit reclusive from the others, was always polite and easily amused. But the other memories of her were troubling. At certain points, Mary had been convinced that something bad was going on at home, the way the girl would react to certain situations.

 

It was normal for a child to be upset at the sight of a dead thing.

 

But that one time in early winter, they had all been out on a field trip to go ice skating on a nearby lake. The ice was thick enough that an elephant could have stomped on it, otherwise Mary would never have taken them out there in the first place. Everyone had been having a good time, playing hockey on the ice or drinking cups of hot cocoa from little plastic cups. An hour into the proceedings, Ariel had awkwardly stepped forward and informed her that she hadn’t seen Odette anywhere.

 

When she found her, she let out a soft, sad sigh at what she found.

 

”Oh honey, come here.”

 

She was on her knees, back hunched over. A few feet away from her was a swan, frozen to death in the ice. It’s feet were stuck, making an escape impossible. It was strange, how such a graceful animal could seem so twisted in death. The neck was broken, and one of the wings stood out at an akward angle, feathers blowing in the wind. One of Odettes small hands had stopped midreach, hovering over the ice. Mary understood – she thought the animal was still alive. She could see it, the moment she realized that this was not so.

 

Mary didn’t know why she said it then exactly, but she felt compelled to.

 

”I’m so sorry.”


	3. Chapter 3

The dreams didn’t come every night. They snuck up on her when she felt most comfortable, and safe. Maybe as a reminder of something that she was too young yet to understand.

 

They didn’t even bother her most times, they were that common enough. When she was younger, they were less vivid, vague impressions or like a collection of still photographs that you couldn’t make sense of.

 

Icecicles on dead branches, a castle that was too big and too empty, and always the sensation of her feet getting cold. Food that was hidden, had to be earned. Midnight sky that was more blue than black, a sense of desperation in her chest. Sometimes she dreamt that a man was watching outside the house, looking up at her bedroom window. The man had a cape, and he didn’t smile or show any hint of expression on his face.

 

Sometimes she dreamed that she wandered through that impossibly large castle, the walls dark and damp and alive. It never led her anywhere special, and she was always alone.

 

It continued this way until she turned thirteen, and she decided that she wanted to become a ballerina.

 

It wasn’t something that she’d been thinking of doing for awhile, like most young girls her age. It just felt like the right thing to do, suddenly. Not that storybrooke had that much to offer in ways of education, but there was a tiny ballet studio. And it had a large window in one of its training rooms. Odette had walked by after school and seen how the dancers moved, hiding faces, turning a head to face the floor as one leg would raise precariously, the other one wobbling until the right balance was found. Hands put into place with deliberate precision, held delicately in the air as if loosing the pose would require punishment. The movements spoke to her like a language she had known, once. Maybe.

 

Though the class was small, and the teacher seemed disinterested and bitter, Odette signed up the next day.


	4. Chapter 4

Everyone knows about the homeless man in Storybrooke, who talks to himself and lives in a cave under a bridge. His name is Rothbart.

 

Everyone knows, and yet nobody really cares that he exist. Why should they? He rarely appears, and whenever he does, it is only to collect trash out of garbage cans or dumpsters. They never listen to what he is actually saying.

 

As a young girl, Odette was told not to go near the caves, because of the strange man that lived there. She nodded and did as she was told, and for many years never even thought of him.

 

But she is thinking of him now, and of his long, frayed coat she catches glimpses of in the dark streets. Following her? While the idea of that is worrying, Odette is more concerned with the fact that she knows now who saved her from drowning in the lake, so many years ago.

 

She has seen him twice. Once in wintertime, on her way home from school. He was rummaging through a dumpster in an alley next to the diner, pocketing broken things and day old bread. She walked past then and he looked up.

 

Odette is hard to frighten, but something about him frightens her. Something about his person seems almost electric, a man on the fringes of sanity. The way he looks at her, intense and withdrawn all at once. She stares back at him for a moment before she surrenders, her dark eyes falling to the snow at her feet. Then she nods to herself, and to him.

 

When she starts walking away from him, she can hear it. He whistles – a tune that’s sad and familiar. Just like the untouched snow that keeps falling.


End file.
